The Marvelous Misadventures of Girl Hops
by LoudAutomata16
Summary: Lana has always claimed that her pet frog was her best friend. And after an accident and experiment, Lana's friendship with Hops takes on a whole new meaning.


There's a common saying: Dog is Man's best friend. Out of all the animals of the animal kingdom, it was the canine that was proudly declared as Man's best friend, due to his loyalty, playfulness and utility.

But if Lana Loud had been around when prehistoric humans collectively decided upon that fact, she would've raised an objection. It wasn't the dog that was humanity's closest friend, she would say. It was the frog.

How would she support that bold assertion?

By pointing at her favorite pet and best friend Hops.

Lana and Hops had been together for a long, long time. She couldn't remember the story of them meeting, so she opted to make one up when she asked by her snooty sister Lola, "Why do you carry that mucky thing around?"

"Because," said Lana, "one day I was down at the park, all by myself, minding my own business by the pond, and suddenly Hops jumps out of the water on a lilypad. He looks at me and I look at him, and he flicks out his tongue and hits me on the cheek, kinda like Charles when he licks me. He hopped around me for a while, and we played a little game, and so I brought him and named him Hops. And now I carry him around as I way to stay together."

Lola raised her lip in disgust, but it didn't matter to Lana what little Miss Prissy Priss thought. What mattered was that she had Hops, Hops had her, and the two of them were happy together. And they would be that way forever, as long as nothing got between them.

But there's another saying, besides the one about dogs and whose friend they were. It goes something like "All good things come to an end". Lana and Hops' close relationship was a good thing, according to both of them. So one July day, the universe decided to make good on that eternal promise.

It started with the Loud family enjoying a nice day outside. All the siblings you would expect to be outside were. There was Luna with her music, flashing angry middle fingers at any car that drove by. There was Lynn in the back, getting ready to kick her football. There was Luan, giggling to herself as she watched Lynn kick the ball, only for the jock's face to contort in pain as she felt the heavy rock Luan had placed inside the ball earlier. There was Lincoln, deleting girls' numbers off his phone with a confident grin. His phone didn't have enough memory to store the phone numbers of all his booty calls -_-

And then there was Lana, probably the only sane family member at this point, playing on the sidewalk with her pet Hops.

"Alright, Hops, here's the game," she said to the frog. She held up a red plastic Frisbee in her hand, shaking it for emphasis, and pointed at herself. "Now, I'm gonna throw the Frisbee as far as I can, but you're not going to chase after it. What you're gonna do is toss out your tongue and catch it while it's air, before it gets too far. Understand?"

The frog blinked, unable to respond in human language.

"Croak once if you get it. Croak twice if you need me to explain it again."

Hops croaked, and Lana grinned.

This was gonna be so _cool!_

"Ready?" she asked the frog. She drew her hand back and tossed the Frisbee. "GO!"

Hops rubbed his little webbed hands and shot out his tongue with the speed and force of a bullet flying out of a gun. It latched to the toy and Hops dug his feet into the dirt as he pulled it back down to Earth. It landed in the street, and Lana ran to get it, before she stopped at the sidewalk and snapped her fingers.

"Oh right. I need to remember what Blarney said. 'Always look both ways before you cross the street, or else you'll be food for the worms to eat.'"

It bears mentioning that Blarney was going through an edgy phase. You know, to appeal to the tweens.

Lana checked both ways once, twice, three times, and then went into the road to grab the Frisbree. She brought it back and looked down at her pet. Hops jumped excitedly, and Lana knelt down on one knee to pat his slimy head. "Let's do it again!" cried Lana, and Hops ribbited with enthusiasm.

She tossed the disc again, with more power in her throw this time. Hops hesitated for a second when he saw how fast the Frisbee was rotating, but he quickly thought of Lana's joy at playing the game, and didn't want to disappoint her. He shot out his sticky tongue again, and again it made contact with the disc…

But this time, it was too fast.

Hops tried to stuff his feet into the ground for support, but it wasn't enough. Rather than dragging the Frisbee down, it took him up with it. The frog went flying into the air, his eyes wide and terrified. "HOPS!" screamed Lana. All the other siblings stopped what they were doing when they heard the tomboy's terrified yell, and they saw the bizarre parody of nature soaring into the air before their eyes.

Hops let go of the Frisbree to save himself. As he fell to the ground, he could feel that his tongue was badly hurt. Possibly burned.

He landed on the road on his back. Lana let out a desperate cry, like a mother watching her child get terribly injured, and tried rushing into the road to pick up her friend when Lincoln and Luna held her back. "What are you guys doing?" she screamed at them, tears beginning to wet her eyes. "I need to save Hops!"

"Lana, the truck!" Lincoln yelled.

The truck?

A truck appeared and passed by, a blur of gray metal and steam. The only thing louder than the truck's horn was Lana's scream.

When the truck passed, Lana couldn't look. She turned around and fell to the ground, a wave of nausea striking her. Luna stepped forward and looked down at the frog, gritting her teeth when she lay eyes on it. "Is… is it dead?" asked Luan.

The truck's tires ran over the frog in the worst possible way. Hop's guts burst out of his wide mouth, a red colored liquid trickling down his sides. His legs were completely crushed, as was most of his lower body. His eyes were glassed over, no sign of life in them... no sign that there had ever been life in them. Luna shook her head, and looked at Luan, then Lana, sadly.

"If he wasn't dead from the fall… he is now."

* * *

The service was quick. It was almost always quick. Lucy said her words and the siblings and parents all bowed their heads as the girl in black put the shoe-box containing Hops' body inside the ground. Lana was the only one that cried. She was, to be honest, angry with the rest of her family. Why weren't they crying too? Didn't they know how much Hops meant to her?

She was angriest at Lisa the most, though. She didn't even pretend like she cared. The whole time she had this annoying look on her face like she was thinking about science things while Lana's best friend was going into the dirt. If Lana weren't so overcome with distraught, she would've yelled at her.

When the service ended, Lucy and the others dispersed, leaving Lana standing there. She looked down at the freshly dug hole, unable to really wrap her head around the idea that her pet frog was down there. He was no longer moving, no longer breathing. M-Maybe he was in Froggy Heaven, where the lilypads were always green and the flies were always fat. The thought made Lana smile, but she frowned when she remembered that she wouldn't be allowed to go there herself. She had to go to stupid People Heaven when she died.

The end result was the same: she would never see Hops again.

She felt a gloved hand on her shoulder, and she looked over. There was Lola's face, obscured slightly by a black veil. She frowned at her sister's dour expression. "Are you going to be alright, Lana?" she asked, perhaps foolishly.

"No. I don't think so."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"You've done enough. Thanks for caring."

A flicker of a smile touched Lola's lips, and Lana realized that Lola hadn't put on any lipstick or lip gloss for this occasion. That made Lana's cold, hurt heart a little warmer.

Lola walked away, leaving Lana to her misery. She looked up at the sky, and saw that the beautiful blue from before was now hidden behind powerful gray clouds, threatening to rain down on her. Most children have a belief that all things that happen in the world are, to some extent, tied to them and how they feel. Lana indulged this fantasy, imaging that the stormy clouds were created by her own sadness... like the universe itself was weeping for Hops...

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

"Bye, Hops," she said softly as she turned and walked away.

When she went inside, she stepped past her mother in the kitchen and the worried eyes she stared at her daughter with. She didn't feel like talking to her mom, or anyone. Not if they couldn't bring back Hops. She didn't need to hear the whole '_life moves on, he lived a good life, if anything it should've been sooner_' thing adults did when their children's pets died.

She went upstairs and tried to go into her room, but she found Lisa waiting for her. The cold-eyed genius was sucking on a lollipop, which she held onto like it was a cigarette.

"My condolences for your loss, elder sister," she said.

"Thanks," Lana said.

"Alright, now that that's out of the way," said Lisa, "I've come here for more than condolences, Lana. I've come here to offer you a once-in-a-lifetime deal."

"I don't wanna hear it, Lisa. I just want to go to bed and lie down."

"Oh, I think you'll want to hear this."

Lana's temper rose, and she bared her teeth. "I said I didn't want to," Lana repeated to her in a colder, angrier voice.

"But Lana-"

"Fine!" Lana yelled, throwing her arms up with exasperation. "Fine, Lisa, fine. I agree to whatever it is. Whatever dumb little science project you have, go ahead and do it. Now I can please go into my room and feel like crap? Do I have your permission to do that?"

"You always had permission to do whatever you wanted," Lisa chirped with a smile, either not noticing or ignoring Lana's anger. She stepped aside and patting Lana's shoulder, still smiling. "Much obliged, older sororal unit. I promise I won't let you down."

"Whatever," the girl in mourning grunted.

While Lana went into her room and jumped into bed as she promised, Lisa went down the stairs and walked outside, where looked up at the sky. There was a storm coming. The rumbling thunder told her as much. Some said that thunder and lightning were the drumbeats of Heaven, so the rumbling in the sky sounded much like a warm-up. Lisa grinned. "This weather couldn't be more perfect," she said to herself.

She then approached Hops' grave. "You know, I almost feel bad digging up this grave," she commented. She paused, then burst into laughter. "Oh, who am I kidding? I've grave-robbed people. I won't feel too bad about an animal."

She then stopped laughing, and looked up to the window of Lola and Lana's room. That reminded her to stop laughing and joking around. She wasn't doing this for the funsies of it: she was doing this for her sister. That made this a serious and somber matter.

Lisa got down on her knees, and began to dig up Hops' grave. Even as her fingernails cracked, even as they dirtied, she didn't stop. Not until she reached the box and pulled it out, opening it up for the body of Hops, and took it with her to the attic.

No one was really sure what she was doing up there, but it was important enough to keep her from dinner and brushing her teeth before bedtime. In fact, she skipped out on bedtime all together, as around midnight, some of the siblings were awoken by a bright flash of lightning and a roaring blast of thunder, followed by Lisa screaming, at the top of her lungs, "It's alive! IT'S ALI-"

"SHUT UP!" screamed Lola from her room.

* * *

The following morning, the Louds found Lisa chugging mocha in the kitchen. She was shaking and jittery, her eyes blinking at rapid speeds while her teeth chattered. "G-G-Good morn-n-ning, fami-mi-ly."

"Jesus Christ, Lisa, what did you do to yourself?!" cried Lori. She snatched the cup of caffeine from the hands of the toddler like a responsible adult. Lisa hissed like Gollum and jumped up trying to grab it, before she slapped herself and shook her head.

"Thank you, Lori. I needed someone to regulate my intake."

"No problem, Lis," Lori said uneasily.

The bespectacled eyes landed on Lana, and Lisa snapped her fingers. "Ah, yes, I remember my purpose now. Quick, Lana, come with me. I must show you something on the double!"

On the double? She really was losing it.

She snatched Lana's wrist, and the older girl barely had time to protest before Lisa started to drag up out of the kitchen and towards the attic. The tomboy tried to free herself, but she couldn't. Lisa, despite her young age and lack of physical activity, had an incredibly strong grip. Lana suspected she might've done something to her fingers.

That something being robot limbs. Or joints. Or appendages. Lana wasn't sure what they were called.

The wooden steps to the attic were already pulled down, so Lisa simply hopped from one step to the next like a giddy little schoolgirl about to give a love letter to her classmate. Lana wasn't so graceful, and she bumped her knee on one of the steeper steps. "Ow."

When they got up in the attic, Lana coughed lightly. There were dust bunnies near every blanket and piece of furniture, and in some places the dust had condensed so much that it formed little mounds of dull-colored sand. She knew that Lisa and Lucy came up here often to do some Frankenstein/Harry Potter weirdo crap, so she wondered why neither of them ever cleaned the place. Don't get Lana wrong; she _loved_ a nice pile of mud or some gooey mold, but dust and sand were different. Dust sucked, and sand was rough and coarse and got everywhere.

"Sister, I present to you now a miracle of science," Lisa began in a dramatic voice. "For you see, I have transgressed against the laws of nature and morality. I have shed a torchlight on the nightmarish spectre that watches over all living things. I have rejected collective reality, and replaced it with my own. A reality where anything is possible through the great gift of ingenuity, bestowed upon us by Prometheus to raise us to the level of Titans and Divines. I-"

"Lisa, just get on with it," said Lana, scratching her stomach with a disinterested look plastered on her face. "I wanna eat breakfast and go sit by Hops' grave for the rest of the day to be sad."

Lisa frowned, upset her brilliant speech had been interrupted. She had so many more metaphors and allusions she was going to use!

"You won't need to do that, elder sister," said Lisa, "for I have brought Hops back from the dead."

The room was silent, for a still moment. Then Lana made a noise that was somewhere between a choke and a gasp.

"Lisa, if you're kidding with me right now..."

"I am most certainly not kidding. I have resurrected Hops, much as a necromancer would in one of Lincoln's silly fantasy movies. But this isn't fantasy. No, this is real life."

Lana's heart thumped loudly. She felt something odd. Something like… hope…

"Well then… come on, Lisa, let me see him!" Lana spun her head from side to side, searching for the silhouette of a living, breathing, hopping Hops. "Where is he?"

"Um… I think this next part is going to need some explanation..."

Lana raised an eyebrow, and Lisa tapped her pointer fingers together. "So… at first, I tried to bring back the frog in his body. However, I thought better of it. The body was too broken, too far gone, and I didn't have the time or energy to fix it. So instead I transferred her mind into another body."

"So another frog? That's fine. It's still Hops, in the end."

"Er… it wasn't a frog body. It's a… human body."

Lana made the choking noise again.

"A human female body."

And again.

"A human female about your age."

And again.

Lisa grinned sheepishly. "But hey, like you said, it's still Hops in the end, right? And surely, shouldn't we be marveling the miracle that brought back your faithful pet?"

"Lisa, where is Hops? I want to see… her," said Lana, tasting the last word on her tongue. It felt weird to be referring to the historically male Hops with that pronoun.

_I mean, some frogs change their gender at some point in their lives, so… yeah… _

Lisa sighed, then pulled back on a tarp the color of eggshells. Lana saw the new Hops, and she made the choking gasp for one final time. For good measure.

"I wasn't willing to use one of my cadavers for this project, mostly because it would be weird to see a little girl playing Frisbee with a man that's clearly not her father," Lisa said, "so I sampled a little DNA from some of our family members, mixed it together, cloned it, and… voila!"

The girl before Lana looked somewhat familiar, as if she really were a mix of all the family members. She had the same build as Lola and Lana, the same freckles littering her cheeks as Lincoln and Luna, the same blue eyes as Lori and Leni, and the same ponytail as Lynn and Luan. The one thing that completely distinguished this girl from everyone else was her hair. It was an odd shade of greenish blonde, if that made sense. It was a color you'd see in plants rather than people. It didn't look bad, though, and given the girl's origin, it made sense.

The girl blinked and cocked her head when she saw Lana, the light of recognition shining in her lapis eyes. Lana reached out to her with a shaking hand. "H-Hops?" she exhaled her pet's name.

The girl opened her mouth, and said…

… nothing.

Instead, she croaked.

And then she got on her hands and feet, darting her head around. To an onlooker, it would've looked like a cute little girl trying to imitate her favorite animal, like kids did from time to time. To Lisa and Lana, though, it looked like the most confusing thing in the world.

"Lisa… what is Hops doing?"

"I said I put Hops in a human body," Lisa shrugged. "I never said I made her human. She's still a frog, deep down."

Girl Hops croaked, and Lisa shrugged again. "Well, I guess not that deep down."

She then began pushing Lana and Girl Hops out of the attic. "Alright, thank you very much," said Lisa. "Lana, you are no doubt thunderstruck by my invention, so I shall not take up more of your time. What you do with Hops is your choice. I'd recommend putting her on a collar, so she doesn't wander. Bye."

The two six year olds (well, technically, the six year old and the day year old) were ejected from the attic, and Lisa slammed it shut. She smiled to herself. "Ah, it feels marvelous to do a good deed," the genius said to herself. "And since I've done a good deed, now God won't be mad at me anymore for that time I made love pheromone gas and it spread in the house."

She shivered at the memories. "Welp, time to go back to the mind wiping device."

Since Lisa was busy mind wiping herself, she couldn't hear Lana as she banged the door below and hollered "Hey, Lisa, open up! What am I supposed to do with a little girl? I don't want her. I want my frog back!"

When it became clear no one was going to answer, Lana sighed and looked back to Girl Hops. The green haired girl seemed nice enough. She had a sweet smile and bright eyes that reminded her of her playful pet. But still, it was hard picturing this creature as her beloved Hops. Mostly because Hops was, you know, a _frog._

"I guess we can make the best of this. It's… it's good to have you back, Hops," Lana said sincerely, clapping a hand on Girl Hops' shoulder. She frowned, though, as she noticed something sticking to her cracked fingers. Lana lifted her hand and noticed a thin slime attached to her. Apparently, frog girls came pre-lubed!

"You know what? The park does sound good."

* * *

People in big cities have a certain advantage over people in small towns. Big cities hosted more people, and the more people there are, the more likely you are to have weirdos. People who dressed in strange costumes, said weird things. You weren't going to find an Elmo preaching about the End Times in a small town. You weren't going to find a gang of vloggers running around with stupid hats on. You weren't going to find a half-naked fat man carrying a sign reading I'M SEXY AND YOU KNOW IT.

You were, however, going to find a young girl walking another young girl with a leash - the leashed girl in question walking on all fours, making frog noises, and lifting her green-colored hair proudly.

People couldn't help themselves. They stared and snuck glances, but as the two girls were barely in elementary school, people assumed it was some innocent play. Had they been older, someone might've scolded them to keep that stuff inside.

No one suspected that the green-haired girl was a frog brought back from the dead.

_Why would they? _Lana thought. _That's the kinda thing that happens in those boring Disney movies Dad tries to show us. This stuff doesn't happen in real life. Unless you have a sister like mine. A-duh!_

"Alright, Hops, we're here." Lana inhaled the fresh air of the park through her nostrils, and exhaling through her mouth in a relaxed sigh. "Oh, by the way, do you want me to call you Girls Hops from now on? Because you're a human girl now, for some reason."

Girl Hops croaked, and Lana smiled. "At least you still remember our code."

Lana sat down on the bench and tied Girl Hops' leash to it, afraid to let her wander. Truth be told, Lana was scared of Hops ending up in the street again, getting run over, this time more bloodily and brutally. _She won't get run over, though. She's a smart frog. The only reason she got over before was because of… me…_

Lana shook the guilty thought from her head, and untied the frog girl's leash. "YOLO, I guess," she said.

The two girls went to the sandbox, and Lana smiled happily as she tucked up her pants and got down on her knees. She liked the way the sand grazed on her knee, warming it up. _This_ was the good sand. Not the crappy stuff in the attic.

Mud would be better, though.

"Hey, Girl Hops, wanna see a little trick?" Lana said with monkeylike mischief. She reached into her overalls' pocket, and produced a full bottle of water. She unscrewed the cap and popped it off, letting it fall into the sand. She bent her hand, and Girl Hops watched as the water mingled with the sand, turning into wet, brown mud.

Lana made a clumsy ball of mud and, eyes still glinting with playfulness, tossed the ball of mud right at Girls Hops' freckled cheek. She let out a laugh, and Girl Hops laughed as well, if only to imitate her owner. Laughter was a new thing for her.

She responded to Lana's surprise attack with one that she felt was equally good. She gathered up a handful of sand, and hurled it at Lana. She didn't notice how Lana immediately gagged, some of the burning sand on her tongue, and she quickly said, "Alright, Girl Hops, you win."

No, she didn't notice, which was why she did it again. And then, when Lana fell on the ground, did it again, this time striking her eyes. "Ahh!" Lana let out a cry of pain, wiping the particles away from her eyes as quickly as they pouring down from Girl Hops' hand. "Seriously, STOP!" she yelled at the frog girl, and Girl Hops stopped. She watched curiously and innocently as Lana wiped the sand from her eyes, and when she could finally open them again, she looked at Girl Hops with red eyes.

And they weren't just red from the sand.


End file.
